Tuesday, June 30, 2009

BG 1969. D: Harry Kümel. DP: Ghislain Cloquet; WITH: Josef von Sternberg, Dorothée Blank; P: Jacques Ledoux, Denise Delvaux, BRT 16mm. 75’. In English and Flemish. From: Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique per concessione di VRT. - Presenta Eric De Kuyper, earphone translation in Italian and English, viewed at Cinema Lumière 2, Bologna, 30 June 2009. - A low contrast 16mm print. 16mm is the original format of the material shot for this documentary. - Shortly before his death in 1969 Josef von Sternberg (born 29 May 1894) gave this interview to the Belgian television. He is mentally in great shape. He is smoking. - JvS: I'm a very complicated man. The older I get, the more complicated I become. - I was a great collector. I had everything. I was the unhappiest man. I got rid of everything. It's best to be without anything. When you wish for something you are reasonably happy. - Complete freedom is very dangerous. You must have things against which to operate. - The paradox: I don't think I'm an artist. The artist produces nothing. The artist is recognized after death. Talent is not easy. It is easier to be a genius than to have talent. An artist knows when to stop. - Matisse: the canvas takes possession of him. - I have made very few films. - Ice cold: the only way to create passion. - The wind of life breathes in my films. - There is hardly any difference between women and men. Women have more sense. - Cigarettes in films: creating motion on screen. Every second some perceptible movement. There has to be motion all the time. - Actors are like children: only body, no brain. - Masks in Asian theatre: you have a thousand masks. - I am Marlene. - JOSEF VON STERNBERG LIGHTS DOROTHEE BLANK (THE LAST FILM OF JOSEF VON STERNBERG?): Dorothée Blank: A Conception. First we see the normal face. Then: the selection of wigs. JvS makes up Dorothée's face. "It is really not her face, but I impose it on her". "Alien to her, alien to me". He sets a fan. "Forget about everything". "Make backlight stronger". "Bring it down". "I'm not doing this for television, I'm doing this for film". Using the cucoloris (the cookie). Using the exposure meter. "Don't make it automatic". "Make believe you're a tree". Dorothée Blank gets tired. Masks in front of her: sorrow, weariness. "An actor does not cry". "The business is to simulate. To hide and to reveal". "The essential remains hidden". - I was very grateful to see this complete documentary. I had only seen the Dorothée Blank sequence before (on German tv in the 1980s).

- The tribute to Griffith's annus mirabilis was sabotaged by the terrible quality of the prints. The original negatives exist at MoMA, but for some reason good prints of Griffith's films are rare.- In 1909 Griffith directed 142 films. Quoting Tom Gunning's introductory text to the program: "Griffith had discovered the powers of parallel editing in 1908, but in 1909 he truly explored its diverse uses from suspense, to political commentary, to psychological exploration. But if editing supplied Griffith's major narrative tool, his attention to the image, to composition and lyrical beauty expanded as well."- Griffith discovers the landscape as an image of the soul, "soulscape"

- the incidental, the accidental, the providential, the passer-by, the stray dog- the transitional zone between fiction and non-fiction- the feeling of real presence (Bela Balazs)- the cinema of distractions (Luke McKernan)

[Ricordate i loro volti] / Prestuplenije grazhdanina Surkava. SU 1930. PC: GTK, dist. Sojuzkino. D: Ivan Mutanov. SC: Alexandre Krein, Naum Loiter, Ivan Mutanov. DP: Benzion Monastyrski. CAST: A. Genin, Vasili Bokarjov, A. Duletov, K. Iastrebitski. 2003 m /22 fps/ 80 min. From: Gosfilmofond. - Grand piano: Alain Baents, earphone translation in Italian and English, viewed at Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 29 June 2009. - From the catalogue: The action takes place in a tannery. A young Jew fine tunes a machine to be used for mechanizing the work process. Some workers break in, instigagted by a competitor who manipulates anti-Semitic feelings so that the young man is forced to leave the factory. A Komsomol unit shows up in time to stop the attacks against young Beitchik. The screenplay was created as a part of the demand for films for the campaign against anti-Semitism that began in 1927 after a number of criminal episodes against Jewish factory workers. It was co-written by Naum Loiter, Meyerhold's former assistant, director of the Proletkult Theater, and later director of the Jewish theater of Kharkov, and Alexandre Krein (better known as Kron), who made his screenwriting debut with this film. They used a number of elements from cases that had caused a stir (even giving the main character a name similar to one of the victims) and the issues dealt with by the press and the campaign brochures. The screenplay and the film caused censorship concerns, especially for the Party's passive role. - I saw the end of this film and was impressed by the stark montage and the dynamic cinematography.

From Martin Scorsese's introductory text: Rightfully acknowledged as one of the greatest Egyptian films ever made. Based on a true story: in 1881, precious objects from the Tanite dynasty started turning up for sale, and it was discovered that the Horabat tribe had been secretly raiding the tombs of the Pharaohs in Thebes. Al momia has an extremely unusual tone - stately, poetic, with a powerful grasp of time and the sadness it carries. The carefully measured pace, the almost ceremonial movement of the camera, the desolate settings, the classical Arabic spoken on the soundtrack, the unsettling score by the great Italian composer Mario Nascimbene - they all work in perfect harmony and contribute to the feeling of fateful inevitability. The picture has a sense of history like no other. And in the end, the film is strangely, even hauntingly consoling - the eternal burial, the final understanding of who and what we are. - AA: It is hard to put it better than Martin Scorsese above, and I'm grateful for the World Cinema Foundation for bringing this unique masterpiece back to circulation, albeit via a digital intermediate.

- The Centenary of the newsreel (Pathé Journal)- The only moving image records of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in their first Paris season in 1909.- The first aerial films- Marinetti's Futurist manifesto in February 1909 celebrated with the film of The Electric Policeman- Maria Montessori's Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica (1909) celebrated with films about children- James Joyce's Volta Cinema in Dublin opened in Dublin in 1909; among the films shown was Une pouponnière- The Centenary of the film star: Cretinetti (Max Linder, Sarah Duhamel, and Stacia Napierkowska were to be credited by name later)- The Centenary of the film diva: Stacia Napierkowska

Prima stagione dei Ballets Russes a Parigi / First Paris season of the Ballets Russes

Ok print, a bit low contrast. - Ok English translation. - From the catalogue: The film was edited with unused rushes from the film Mabul (The Flood), an adaptation of a work by Sholem Aleichem and an initiative of the Jewish theatre Habima in Moscow. It was Yevgeni Ivanov-Barkov's first film, and the screenplay was so complex that while editing he had to cut many scenes and subplots, hence the idea for this second film. Set before the 1905 revolution, the film tells the story of two small-town Jewish families. The father of one family has chosen the path of assimilation, while the other decides to uphold tradition. Their sons leave to study in the city. One becomes a spy for the secret service and the other, a Zionist, takes up an internationalist position. They both are active in the political unrest of the times. When 1905 rolls around with its wave of pogroms, no one is spared. There are several elements that are similar to Mabul: the attempt on the governor's life, the execution of a revolutionary, the pogrom. While the first film's Passover scene was cut by censors, Against the Will of the Fathers added it. Unlike Mabul, which was released but not preserved, this film was banned and remained, though incomplete, in the archives. - Strong performances by the actors. Especially soulful is A. Dzioubina as Esther. - Impressive scenes: the terrorist attack, in the claws of the Okhrana, the flyers in the belly of the "pregnant" revolutionary, the Passover eve, the epic scene as the cossacks break up a rebellion. - The pogrom sequence is the most powerful I remember having seen in a film. Even the assimilated ones are persecuted.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Горе Сарры / Gorié Sarry / La disgrazia di Sarah; RU 1915. D: Alexandre Arkatov. SC: V. Toldi; DP: Boris Mikhine; Op.: Ladislas Starewitch, Alexandre Ryllo, Fedor Bremer; CAST: Tatiana Chornikova (Sarah), Alexandre Khérouvimov (il padre), Praskovia Maximova (la madre), Ivan Mosjoukine (Isaac), Pavel Knorr (il padre di Isaac), Antonina PojarskaÏa (la madre di Isaac), Viatcheslav Tourjanski (Boruh); PC: Khanjonkov (Mosca). 35mm. Orig: 800 m. 445 m. 22’ a 18 fps. B&w. From: Gosfilmofond. - Presenta Christophe Gautier, grand piano: Donald Sosin, earphone translation in Italian and English, viewed at Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 27 June 2009. - A print of a restored version supervised in 1992 by Yuri Tsivian. - A good quality of the image in the print. - From the catalogue text: Under pressure from the Elders and the Law, a childless couple must separate after 10 years of living together. Isaac, the husband (Ivan Mosjoukine), ends up dying, whereas Sarah realizes - too late - that she is pregnant... The director is clearly sympathetic with Isaac's brother, Baruch, a young student who represents the values of the young, liberated Jewish intellectuals at the beginning of the century. The director, Arkatov, debuted in 1910 with a screenplay for the first Jewish film shot by the Russian subsidiary of Pathé, L'khaim, the success of which sealed the genre's fate. He then began directing in 1912, first at Pathé, where he chose stories that criticized the traditional way of living. In February 1917, he began making films attacking the conditions imposed on Jews by the empire for the Zionist oriented Odessa company Mizrah, which produced The Life of the Jews in Palestine (1913). - The tragedy of childlessness - a reason for divorce - Isaac hangs himself - but Sarah then finds that she is expecting his baby - we see a Jewish cemetery. 19 min

Dov'è la verità? / Afn yam un Ellis Island. LV-RU 1913. D: Semion Mintus. Based on the play by Abraham Chomer (Nohum Meir Chaïkevitch). CAST: Anna Liesma, Herbert Konrad, Janis Ozols/Ozolkaïa, Lucia Liepste-Ozols; PC: Production Semion Mintus (Riga). 35mm. Orig: 1200 m. 848 m. 41’ a 18 fps. No intertitles. Lacking intertitles have been replaced at the beginning of each reel with summarizing Russian intertitles. From: Gosfilmofond. Presenta Christophe Gautier, grand piano: Donald Sosin, earphone translation in Italian and English. Viewed at Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 27 June 2009. - Print ok, at first high contrast, dark, screened maybe too fast. - The earphone translation was terrible, which made the film impossible to understand, as titles were missing, and there were only summarizing Russian intertitles here and there. - According to the programme book: A melodrama shot by a Jewish producer from Riga that narrates the misfortunes of a young student under Tsarist rule. She lost her parents in the Kishinev pogrom and now studies in Riga, where the police decide to pick on her. She does not have the right to residence so she must register as a prostitute. She is arrested by mistake, loses her mind, and dies, despite the actions of her boyfriend who gets her out of prison. - Semion Mintus, owner of one of the largest theaters in Riga (Le Colisée) founded a distribution company in 1909 that covered the Baltic regions of the empire. He produced many films on Jewish subjects from 1912 till 1913. The story supposedly circulated as a form of "film play": actors behind the screen acted out repeated performances of it. In 1913, the story was made for the screen in Odessa by Miron Grossman (Studio Mirograf). - Strong images: the woman in prison, accused of theft; visions of the pogrom; the woman on her sickbed.

Kinojudaica introduction text from the programme book of Il Cinema Ritrovato, 2009

Kinojudaica, the Image of Jews in Russian and Soviet Cinema from the Teens to the Years after the Second World WarProgramme by Natacha Laurent (Cinémathèque de Toulouse) e Valérie PoznerPromosso da Cineteca di Bologna, Ambasciata di Francia in Italia, Fondazione Nuovi Mecenati, Délégation culturelle / Alliance Française de BologneIn collaboration with GosfilmofondCon il patrocinio della Fondazione Museo Ebraico di Bologna

Cinémathèque de Toulouse and Gosfilmofond organized a retrospective of 20 programs uncovering more than 30 films featuring Jewish stories, themes and characters produced under the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union between the 1910s and 1960s.

The films were chosen in order to demonstrate the diversity and wealth of such a vast production, still largely unacknowledged, that includes shorts, medium length and feature length films, fictional movies, documentaries and actuality films. They cover a variety of subjects: the traditional Jewish life in the shtetls of the “Pale of Settlement” and a world that has vanished almost without a trace; the swift change of modernity and the diverse political spectrum of the Jewish world that began to develop at the end of the 19th century (Zionism, socialism, Bundism, poalei-tsion); Tsarist discriminatory policies and the social situation Jews were reduced to under the Russian Empire: restrictive laws, repressions, pogroms, anti-Semitism; the hope for change and social success; the creation of Jewish utopias within the Soviet Union (Birobidzhan, Crimea, acknowledgment of Yiddish culture and legacy, the return of immigrants); the fight against anti-Semitism, which was revived during the late 20s; condemnation of growing anti-Semitism in Germany (these films made quite an impact abroad); the Holocaust and the problems with its portrayal in post war film.

The retrospective includes some of the most important names of Russian and Soviet cinema (Bauer, Kulechov, Donskoi), lesser known names (Dubson, Vilner, Korch-Sabline), and also some totally unknown ones (Mutanov for fictional film, Mazrukho for documentaries). Countless artists contributed to these productions: writers like Peretz Markish or Isaac Babel, who also took inspiration from classic Yiddish literary and theatrical works like the writings of Sholem Aleichem, composers like Lev Pulver, Isaak Dunayevsky or Polish jazzman Henryk Wars, great Jewish theater actors like Solomon Mikhoels or Veniamin Zuskin, but also Russian actors like Maria Blumenthal-Tamarina or Nikolai Batalov.

Il Cinema Ritrovato chose seven programs covering the rarest fictional films produced between the 1910s and the post World War II era. This selection provides a glimpse of a cultural legacy that today has all but disappeared: the cultural history of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union.

US 1916. D: Francis Ford. Ass. D: John Ford; SC: Francis Ford, Grace Cunard; CAST: Grace Cunard (Nan Jefferson), Francis Ford (il bandito), John Ford (il fratello); PC: Universal; 35mm. Orig: 273 m. 245 m. 13’ a 16 fps. B&w. English intertitles From: BFINA / Printed in 2009 by the BFI from an original nitrate print. Presenta John Oliver, grand piano: Maud Nelissen, viewed at Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 27 June 2009. - From John Oliver's introduction: In 1914-1916, John Ford worked in a number of capacities for Francis Ford and other directors such as Allan Dwan. John would later credit Francis as the greatest of influences on his own directorial career. During this period, it is believed that John acted in at least 13 films, all directed by Francis. With Francis as the titular bandit and Grace Cunard the heroine whom he promises to kiss, A Bandit's Wager is possibly the only one of these films to survive (John appears as Grace's brother). - Print from a scratched source. - Grace Cunard is put to a test. She thinks she has been caught by a bandit (Francis Ford), but displays formidable resistance, destroying his effects, including the mirror and the guitar. In fact, the bandit is Grace's brother's (John Ford) friend. She passes the test. "You belong to the West".

US 1912 D: Thomas H. Ince (?) CAST: Edgar Kellar, Ethel Grandin, Sky Eagle; PC: 101 Bison; 35mm. 220 m. 11’ a 18 fps. B&w. English intertitles From: BFINA Printed in 2007 by the BFI from two nitrate prints. Presenta John Oliver. Grand piano: Maud Nelissen. Viewed at Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 27 June 2009. - From John Oliver's introduction: stories of unjust accusations of cowardice were a staple of 101 Bison Westerns. The cavalry officer dishonourably discharged restores his honour, wins back his sweetheart, and saves his old regiment from Indian attack. The film was long held at BFI as two separate, unidentified films, but was identified in 2007 as being two parts of the same film. - From battered source material, signs of damage, at times barely visible. - Epic war imagery, furious visions as Jim falls from his horse. He saves the life of the officer who discharged him. Noble long shots. 11 min

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Albert Edelfelt painted in the age of the birth of the cinema. He belonged to the last great generation of realistic painters. Photography was already an important tool for his generation. Photography and cinema satisfied gradually the realistic need, and the ambitious artists turned to non-realistic ways of expression.

Edelfelt was sometimes criticized for being conventional, and he was bitterly hurt by such criticism. He was a many-sided artist, and yes, some of his best-known works were somewhat conventional.

One of his last works was a stark series of etchings (1904) for Selma Lagerlöf's tale The Treasure of Sir Arne. Edelfelt's compositions were the explicit model for Mauritz Stiller's magisterial film adaptation (1919) of Lagerlöf's tale. Stiller's film is the obvious model for certain scenes in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen (1924) and in Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (1944).

If a museum or a gallery in Finland wants to have a certain hit, there is no better choice than Albert Edelfelt, but in Retretti, they have not lazily gone for a familiar formula, instead introducing a fresh and critical perspective.

Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905) was one of the first Finnish artists with an international standing. In Paris, he painted the official portrait of Louis Pasteur, and in Russia, Czar Nicolas II modelled for him. In his way of expression, he belonged to the Realist line of painters, his professional skill based on studies in Paris (Ecole des Beaux-Arts), schooled also in Naturalism. Also his affinities with the contemporary Russian artists are evident. Edelfelt was a professional, well-paid artist with great financial responsibilities. This often affected his choice of subject-matter.

In Finland, Edelfelt was a leading figure in the Golden Age of Finnish art during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. He was an important part in the awakening of the Finnish culture, in the great cultural project of building the Finnish nation, a foundation of Finnish independence in 1917.

The curator of Retretti's Edelfelt exhibition, Ms. Maria Vainio-Kurtakko, had chosen interesting angles to the selection. I try to summarize below some key points from her catalogue introduction.

She has selected a Nordic viewpoint, Edelfelt's close contacts with his colleagues in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. In Denmark, Georg Brandes formulated key ideas of the era, which became known as the breakthrough of modernity (det moderne genembrud). The Norwegian artist Christian Krohg (1852-1925) stressed social awareness and social conscience.

In the summer 1879 many artists belonging to the Georg Brandes circle visited Skagen in order to depict Danish peasants and the Danish landscape in the French "plein air" style. Edelfelt's friends included the Danes Karl Madsen (1855-1938), Anna Ancher (1859-1935), Michael Ancher (1849-1927), and P.S. Kröyer (1851-1909). Edelfelt's friends included also the Swede Anders Zorn (1860-1920) with his bucolic landscapes and ample female figures. All these artists are on display in Retretti.

During the 1880s the Nordic artist community flourished in Paris. Even before visiting Paris Edelfelt had felt the passion to paint the seaside views of the Haikko Bay, and starting in 1879 he realized several such paintings. Villa Edelfelt in Haikko became a favourite stop for Finnish intelligentsia.

Inspired by the poet J.L. Runeberg, Edelfelt liked to paint the lives of ordinary people, the hard-working fishermen, in a spirit of dignity irrespective of their poverty and harsh living conditions. There is no sign of social criticism in Edelfelt's work.

The concept of the new woman was essential in the breakthrough of modernity. In Edelfelt's work, women have a central place, including in his definitive portraits of central women artists of the age, such as the actress Ida Ahlberg and the opera diva Aino Achté, and the magnificent portraits of his mother, Alexandra Edelfelt.

The summer idyll of children playing in the sunshine is one of the favourite themes in Edelfelt's paintings. Solskenstycken (sunny pictures) was a favourite genre of him; they almost always depict women and children. Ms. Vainio-Kurtakko points out that they are the opposite of social awareness in the age of Henrik Ibsen and The Doll's House. Edelfelt paints the idyllic portrait of the traditional woman, glorifying the mother and the beautiful young girl relaxing in the garden.

One might call Edelfelt a master of the belle époque in Finland. He died in 1905, the year of the first Russian Revolution, the year of the Battleship Potyomkin.

In Retretti, familiar paintings are juxtaposed with little-known ones, and the paintings of the five Nordic contemporary painters illuminate even the standard Edelfelt works in an interesting way.

Retretti, Punkaharju, Midsummer Day, 20 June 2009. - On a cloudy and chilly Midsummer Day it seemed like a good idea to visit the Art Center Retretti. - We soon noticed that many others had the same idea. The center was well attended but not too crowded for comfort. - Retretti is one of the biggest art centers in the Nordic countries. - It is located on the Punkaharju esker in the Puruvesi district of Lake Saimaa. The Punkaharju esker is famous for one of the most ravishing landscapes in Finland. (The name Punkaharju itself means Punka Esker.)

Paavo Piskonen was watching the film in the audience. - A brilliant black and white print. - Based on an absurd radioplay by Paavo Haavikko, which has also been adapted as an opera by Aulis Sallinen. - The equester of the Prince of England predicts that the Prince will cross the English Channel as a King on horseback by July. His spouse will be called Anne or Caroline. However, the Emperor of Japan has caused global freezing in the summer of 1945 by ordering a taxi. The Prime Minister warns against going to France, because this would mean war. According to the Prince this would be the only war which would start because there is no reason, and that is why it is unavoidable. The blind King of Bohemia is on his way to the battle of Crécy, but his troops are going around in circles. Finally, one of the soldiers executes the blind king. The Queen arrives and follows the troops to the South. By spring the King orders protection to eggs of cranes, because a wedge of cranes is his only compass. - Eccentric, ambitious, bewildering, boring, mad. - The stark cinematography is often impressive. - The actors play their crazy lines straight. - Reportedly, Paavo Haavikko approved.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

DE/AT/CA/HU (c) 1999 [many production companies]. P: Andras Hamori, Robert Lantos. D: István Szabó. SC: István Szabó, Israel Horovitz. DP: Lajos Koltai - colour and black & white (archival footage) - 1,85:1. M: Maurice Jarre. Egmont overture by Beethoven. PD: Attila Kovács. AD: Zsuzsanna Borvendég. COST: Györgyi Szakács. ED: Michal Arcand. CAST: Ralph Fiennes (Ignatz Sonnenschein / Adam Sors / Ivan Sors), Jennifer Ehle (Valerie Sonnenschein as a young woman) Rosemary Harris (Valerie Sors as a grown-up woman), Rachel Weisz (Greta), Deborah Kara Unger (Maj. Carole Kovacs), John Neville (Gustave Sors as an old man), Miriam Margolyes (Rose Sonnenschein), Rüdiger Vogler (Gen. Jakofalvy), Hanns Zischler (Baron Margitta), Mari Töröcsik (Older Kato), William Hurt (Andor Knorr). 181 min. A Filmunio print, original in English, viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 12 June 2009. - Print with beautiful colour, pleasant photochemical look, wear and tear in changeovers. - One of the essential films by István Szabó, one of the essential Jewish films of all time, an essential film of reckoning with the Eastern European past, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. - It is the story of a hundred years in three generations of the Sonnenschein / Sors family. It starts from the shtetl, the family patriarch the inventor of a herbal liquor. Ignatz becomes a judge, and has to change his name. His son Adam becomes an Olympic fencer, and has to convert to Catholicism. That does not prevent him from becoming a victim of the Holocaust. His son Ivan becomes a police officer in Socialist Hungary, to bring the fascists to justice. But witnessing the crimes of Stalinism and the bloody repression of the people's uprising of 1956 he turns his back to the new system. - A unique attempt to cover honestly the various totalitarian administrations in Hungary. - As a Jewish film, it is about the tragedy of forced assimilation and persecution. The Holocaust episode belongs to the most harrowing in the history of the cinema. - Among the recurrent motifs: the lost recipe notebook, the grandfather's watch, the splinters. - Towards the end of the film certain lessons first mentioned in the start get new resonance. "We are afraid to see clearly and to be seen clearly". "If you struggle for acceptance, you'll always be unhappy". "You are not in prison, they are in prison". "One day I'll wipe that smile off your face". "I'm not anybody's wife, I'm myself". - The finest sequence: the 1956 uprising edited to the rhythm of Beethoven's Egmont overture. - There are gorgeous female roles in the film, and especially the scenes with the bright Jennifer Ehle radiate with intelligence, courage, sensuality and frank sexuality. - Rachel Weisz would have deserved more screen time, but of course the film is long as it is. Rosemary Harris is excellent as the grown-up Valerie. - Although Ralph Fiennes in his triple role portrays the three main characters, finally, Valerie is the soul and heart of the film, the only one who never loses her inner compass. - A film I decided I want to see again even while still watching it.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Luottamus / Förtroende. HU 1979. PC: Objektiv Filmstudio. D+SC: István Szabó. DP: Lajos Koltai. CAST: Ildikó Bánsági (Kata), Péter Andorai (Janos). 117 min. A Filmunio print with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, 5 June 2009. - A worn print, turned red, shortened by 10 min and badly battered in previous venues. - Revisited: an intensive chamber piece that I had previously seen only on tv, very tired. - One of Szabós best films, still strong, it has stood the test of time well. - Life during the final period of the Nazi occupation in Budapest, when the terror and the persecution were at their worst. This is, however, not a Holocaust story. It's the personal story of the wife of a resistance fighter, who has to lead a double life during the final year of the Nazi occupation. She has to assume a false identity, living in isolation in a room with a fake husband, also a Resistance fighter. - It is about the constant fear of the small detail giving one away. - Elliptic montage. - Ildikó Bánsági has the same kind of nobility in her demeanour as Ingrid Bergman. - Life under extreme pressure. "It does not matter where you are as long as you are at ease with yourself". - This is also an erotic film: sex with the perfect stranger. The sex scenes belong to the best in the history of the cinema, thanks to Ildikó Bánsági's delicate candour. - After the liberation the terror and the persecution start again under a different banner.

The image in the print varied from good to grainy. - A fascinating Bukowskian odyssey starring the director himself as the man in the white suit, who conquers almost any woman in a series of superficial relationships. With witty dialogue, the film is constantly interesting, and with a hidden despair beneath. - The framing story reveals the burned-out old man giving his account to a video camera. The white suit is now folded on the chair. - It is a satire on a life based on easy gratification, short attention span, self-centeredness, about always taking the easy way out. - This film was not a success at its time, but it has stood the test of time well. There is not a dull moment in it.

About Me

Antti Alanen (born 1955) is Film Programmer at National Audiovisual Institute (Finland), which runs the Cinema Orion in Helsinki. This diary is an irregular notebook and scrapbook of rough notes on films and related matters. Spoiler alert: I spoil everything because for me the plot and the conclusion are essential to discuss!

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Cecil Taylor: Silent Tongues

Jazz Record of the Week 24/2016

Sonny Rollins: A Night at the Village Vanguard (1957, 2 cd reissue 2016)

Jazz Record of the Week 23/2016

Charlie Mingus: Blues & Roots

Jazz Record of the Week 22/2016

Mal Waldron: Moods

Jazz Record of the Week 21/2016

Django Bates: Belovèd Bird

Jazz Record of the Week 20/2016

Jacques Loussier Trio: The Original Play Bach Vols. 1 & 2

Jazz Record of the Week 19/2016

Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges: Side by Side

Jazz Record of the Week 18/2016

Ray Charles: Genius+Soul=Jazz. Complete 1956-1960 Sessions with Quincy Jones (Genius+Soul=Jazz, The Genius of Ray Charles, The Genius Hits the Road, and from The Great Ray Charles and The Genius After Hours)